Propose myself or wait?

[HannahLouD]

Hello! :)

I'm (F 30) and I've been with my partner (M 35) for 4 years. It's our "anniversary" on 26th July and I'm seriously contemplating proposing to him (is that mad!?)

We have been living together, in a house that we bought together, for 2 years and we have an 8mo son together, as well as a 6yo daughter from a previous relationship of mine.

My partner was married before (separated when we met, and divorced for 3 years now). I've never been married. We spoke about marriage when we first started dating and we both said it was something we would like in the future, despite his past.
I have bought it up a couple of times since, but it's never got much further than him saying "maybe one day". I know obviously he has been through divorce and hurt before, and that he took 6/7 years to propose to his ex, but, I would really like to be engaged and eventually married to him.
I've always seen myself as being married and having a family and I know I am extremely lucky to have a family and to be living with my partner, but I would love the "whole package". Me and my daughter have one surname, and my partner and my son have a different surname - I'd love us to all have the same surname! (My daughter would like to take his if/when we did ever get married).

I know it probably sounds ridiculous, because we are in a stable, committed relationship, and perhaps I shouldn't want/need more, but, it's just something I have always wanted and I just don't think it's going to happen anytime soon if I don't propose myself. I am and have always been, the romantic/thoughtful one in the relationship and I genuinely wouldn't have a problem being the one to ask him. But, I know that's probably quite controversial! I also don't really know what he would say - I know he obviously wants to be with me, but I'm not sure if he would want to be the one to eventually ask... but when?!
I also understand 4 years isn't that long to be with someone, but literally everyone around me is engaged/married, including people who have been in relationships for much shorter amounts of time. Again, I know I shouldn't compare, but here we are, I am doing just that! haha.

Would you, as a woman, ever propose to your male partner? Or wait an indefinite amount of time for it to maybe one day happen? I don't want to keep on hinting to him that it's something I would like him to do, as I know if he wanted to do it, he would. But, is there really any harm in me being the one to ask him?

Thanks everyone! Honest (but not too cruel) opinions very much welcome :)

Apologies if you are aware....but your post suggests you don't necessarily understand the protection that marriage brings?

If you're the high earner in the relationship and you have the assets then great - don't marry. But if your partner earns more than you, has assets etc, then if you split up, unmarried, you have no entitlement to anything. All you'll get (if you're lucky) is child support.

If you're married you have a claim to his assets. You have legal protection.

If you have any more children, if you plan to be a SAHM, if you do anything where you're financially reliant on your partner, then you ought to be married.

I don't want to turn this into a raging debate, but for the woman saying women should be able to propose, i'd be interested to hear your reasoning on this.

My reasoning is (a) they are both grown ups and committed anyway with a child and (b) I don’t believe in evo psych bollocks.

Just have a conversation about it, OP.

Haha thank you! I'm surprised at how many people say I shouldn't have had a child with him... 😶 As said before, I'd love to get married. But it's not the end of the world if not.

My daughters dad isn't really in her life, hence her wanting to take her step-dads name who has been there for her since she was 2 :) (she also would love the same surname as her little brother as well!)

I certainly don’t think you’re stupid in any way. There is no reason to not ask him, but I do think if he really wanted to be married he would ask, as he knows you want to.
But I sure as hell wouldn’t change my child's or my name to his!

We are an older couple. No joint kids. Been together 12 years. He's 56 I'm 51. I would have totally proposed at the right time...but he beat me to it 2 years ago. You really have to read the room. We had a bumpy road and i really seen no chance of us being married any time soon though he has wanted to be married for years. So he was scared to ask incase I said no 🤣🤣 but I knew he wouldnt say no. One day it just hit me that the calmness we wanted had arrived and I really felt like it was finally the right time to live our lives for us and he obviously noticed that change in our relationship also, and he went for it first. We get married in 3 months.

Hey OP,

I think the time for romantic proposals has passed, hasn't it? To me, proposals are questions, gestures, full of promise and possibly uncertainty,

You have a child together, you live together, you've bought a house together. He'd bloody better want to spend the rest of his life with you, shouldn't he, or what's the point?

I think you're more at the stage of "look, I want us to be married for the security and protection it gives us all. I don't feel good not being married so let's talk about what options we have'.

That's a conversation you can and should have at any time,

Marriage before DC is much more than just old fashioned. Yes you can divorce just the same, but the financial protection for the once married mother is much more than when never married. Unless you are the higher earner, with more assets too, in which case, as you were could apply. In divorce, pensions and savings are shared, in a co-hab split only a joint owned house is shared out, and not even that, if the house is in his name. If the man has lots of savings, he walks away with the lot, even though many men could not be in a position to have work and earn without their parter devoting time to look after their DC's. Marriage accounts for family input from both, so both have equal value in law - nothing old fashioned about being equal. In most cohabitation situations, the woman is disadvantaged - as always happened in olden times. The current laws around marriage in the UK make family life less old fashioned and more equitable. To not acknowledge that, is being naive.

This debate boils my piss. Of course women can propose. There is nothing biological about proposing and marriage, it’s an invention by humans, not something hardwired into the male psyche. Individual men and women will have different views on the institution of marriage and it’s nonsense to say all men feel X about it and all women feel Y and proposing will put you at a disadvantage. so yes, theoretically I would absolutely propose to a man if I wanted to.

I say theoretically because IRL I just hate the whole proposal thing full stop (assuming we’re talking about a surprise, down on one knee type thing). I wouldn’t do that, and I’d say no to anyone who did it to me because it would just demonstrate that they didn’t know me or my values at all. Marriage is a legal and financial commitment that needs an equal and open discussion. So it’s more realistic to say yes I would happily be the one to initiate that discussion and be very clear about my intentions e.g timescales and making bookings, not just hinting that “I’d like to be married” and waiting for a man to take charge.

I’ve never had a proposal - we just sat down and said ‘Shall we get married then? Because we love each other and want to make a life
together’. 40 plus married years later …

I don’t get this ‘man is hunter’ stuff. Just sit down and say you love him and getting married is what you want. What does he want? His reaction will tell you all you want to know.

As for all this endless waiting -c’mon girls, take control of your lives.

Thanks again everyone - I'm trying to add an edit to my original post but don't know how?! 😅

I'm going to have a conversation with him about this this evening...
I guess maybe I thought 4 years wasn't very long to be together. He has obviously committed in other ways (having a house together - which we own 50/50) and having a child together. For me, marriage is the last thing on the "list" of things that I wanted.

I know he is his own person and I'm my own person, but, perhaps he thinks this time-frame is also reasonable. As said previously, he took 6/7 years to propose before. His Mum and Dad were never married. His step-dad took 17 years to propose to his mum and his step-mum took 5 years to propose to his dad. Long relationships before marriage are obviously the norm for him from what he's seen. Whereas, my friends and family have all get engaged very, very quickly.

Regardless of literally everything - I appreciate the honest (if sometimes brutal 😅) feedback from everyone! It's made me think a lot deeper about everything as I did not for a second expect this kind of traffic on the post or the kind of answers I have received!

(If anyone knows how I can edit my original post to say that I will just be a grown-up and have the conversation again, please do let me know!) haha.

Missing the point but why should you all change your names to his? It's 2024, why do men's names almost always get precedence?

Nothing wrong with suggesting you get married if you want to. It should be something you decide together, again, this is 2024.

I proposed to my DH 32 years ago. We are still married. We'd discussed it as something we would do eventually, but I was 30 and pissed off that time was passing, so proposed myself with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates. He was super shocked but said yes and here we are.

I proposed on February 29th although wasn’t expecting to, we were just talking about the tradition for that day and I suddenly went for it. Surprised both of us.

We have been together 15 years and had discussed it so it was something in the pipeline. We are both happy but it will be a couple of years before we actually get it done.

I proposed to my DH. We're celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary next year.

I think that 4 years is more than long enough for him to decide whether or not he wants to get married, sure you've already bought a house and had a child!

Don't try convincing yourself that 4 years isn't long enough, just because you are trying to explain his lack of proposal. There was another thread on recently from a woman who had been with the b/f for 13 years and is still waiting. Don't let that be you. Once a woman starts hankering after a proposal the element of 'surprise' has long gone. Just talk to him and get a straight answer one way or another.

I find it odd @HannahLouD that you think 4 years isn’t that long to be in a relationship but you had a child within that time, which ties you with this person for at least 18 years.

Apart from jointly owning the house what are your respective financial positions?

I think it's quite "old fashioned" to feel the need to get married before living together or having a child together.

Living together, OK, people can move in and move out. That's not a big commitment either way. But a child is a lifelomnng commitment that you both share. Buying a house together is a another big commitment. Both big commitments to make with someone who doesn't actually feel all that committed to you.

And actually a proposal is a good way to start the conversation. A big romantic "I want to stay with you forever, to be a couple, face all of life together with you." Or isn't that what you really want?

The practical stuff matters because you are trusting each other with decisions that have a lifelong effect on each other. If you aren't emotionally mutually committed then yes it may have to be decided on purely practical grounds but you may feel differently about committing yourself to a man who doesn't want that.

If he doesn't want it, then you do have a problem but at least you know you have a problem and you can talk to him about what kind of problem it is. Maybe he does want to stay with you forever but is scared to make the leap and say so. Or maybe he's emotionally got half an eye on the back door, on someone better coming along later.

I agree with what previous posters have said. Surely you knew you wanted to spend the rest of your life with your partner when you had a child and took out a mortgage? I think four years is a very long time to have been together without considering marriage, if it's something that you would both want to do at some point. I knew my husband was the man I wanted to grow old with after a month, and we were living together within three months of meeting - it would have been much sooner but rental property was hard to find at that time, particularly for an unmarried couple.

I think everyone's situation is different. I would propose, I don't understand why it should be only allowed for men. However I am quite old fashioned about family and would want to be married before living together/having children in order for me to feel safe and secure.

I think you probably feel differently to him because he has been married before and doesn't see it changing anything about your relationship. I guess the danger is that if you propose you may then still have a long, drawn out engagement if he isn't in any hurry.

Well I think 4 years is plenty long enough to have got engaged. Why do couples wait so long? You know long before that whether you want to spend the rest of your life together. You think it is long enough to have had a child but not long enough to be engaged or even married!

No way would I have hung around for that long before being engaged. I wouldn't even have waited that long to be married. I certainly would not have had a baby before being married either.

This.
Once children arrive, the average woman's career takes a hit. She's given birth and she's the one who can breastfeed; generally she's the one who takes time off paid employment which affects her earning power.
By contrast, when a man becomes a father, statistically his earning potential goes up.
That's why marriage is important. If the relationship breaks down, the woman can be more confident that she isn't going to be screwed over as badly financially because she was the one who took on the unpaid labour of caring for a small child rather than focusing on her career.
That is possibly why people are suggesting marriage before children - not because they have old-fashuoned ideas about sex before marriage or something, but to protect you if the relationship goes tits up.

I didn't actually propose I suppose. I had a day out shopping and went home and said "By the way, I saw a wedding dress that I liked in a sale today, so I bought it" he stopped in his tracks for a second or two then said " OK we best set the date and see the vicar then. What's for tea?" Job done, no drama. That was 44 years ago, he still asks regularly what's for tea😂

That is genuinely a cute as hell story.

Depends what he is like entirely. Some blokes would find it 'emasculating' for some ridiculous reason. But if he's a decent man and the right person for you then he should enjoy it